Chronic disease prevention interventions in children and young adults

Contributing authors:

Dr Hayley Christian

Dr Gina Trapp

Dr Karen Villanueva

Dr Terri Pikora

Background

The purpose of this rapid review commissioned by the Australian Government Department of Health
is to inform future population health policy directions. This review compiles the available evidence for
prevention interventions at key age points and identifies evidence-based interventions shown to be
successful in Australia or other comparable jurisdictions.

Key findings

Overall there is a lack of intervention research targeting poor nutrition, physical inactivity, unsafe use
of alcohol and smoking in children and young adults. This makes it difficult to confidently recommend
individual strategies to reduce the impact of these risk factors on young people’s current health and future
risk of chronic health conditions.

However, this review found strong evidence that the greatest impact on reducing risk factors for chronic
disease is likely to come from a multi-level, multi-strategy, multi-sector approach across the life course.